One Health: Multiple Perspectives

Marcelo Vieira da Silva

Parasitology BMS364
Professors Alan Lymbery and Andrew Thompson
October 20, 2014

One Health: Multiple Perspectives.

The One Health concept is an international approach for expanding interdisciplinary
working group and communications in all levels of health care for humans, animals and the
environment. The synergism accomplished will progress health care for next decades by
accelerating biomedical research discoveries, improving public health efficiency, and
expanding the scientific knowledge base, and improving medical education and clinical care.
Whether appropriately executed, it will help protect and save millions of lives in our present
and next generations (One Health Initiative, 2014).
It is impossible think in human health without considering the intrinsic relationship
between the triad that includes animal, environment and human, therefore recognizing this
interrelationship, One Health seeks to encourage, improve, and protect the health and wellbeing of all organisms and its environment by promoting cooperation and collaborations
between scientific health and environmental professionals and by encouraging initiatives in
leadership and management to reach these objective (One Health Initiative, 2014).
Assuming that wildlife health has a fundamental role on the human and environmental
health, it reinforces that a healthy wildlife population is directly linked to human health, as
well as, an unhealthy wildlife may be prejudicial to human health. From this perspective, the
inter-relationship between human and wildlife health may increase the monitoring of wildlife
as sentinels for diseases, to protect human health. However, it also promote negative attitudes
about wildlife, because of peoples unpredictable reaction after being warned that human
health and wildlife health are linked, and consequently they know wildlife could represent a
danger by playing a function of reservoir for some diseases transmissible to humans (Decker,
2010).
Not only known diseases are the focus of the actual One Medicine, but also those ones
in emerging stages, so a good understanding on the dynamic of diseases under factors such
as, climate changes, human population growth and its distribution should be analysed on the
intention of predicting the possible zoonotic outbreaks in the future. Jones et al. (2008) relate
that the incidence of emerging infectious diseases (EID) has increased since 1940 and
reached its peak in 1980, and reported that 335 infectious diseases emerged in the global
human population in a period of 64 years, from 1940 to 2004. The majority of emerging
infectious diseases (60.3%) were originated by wildlife zoonotic diseases, whereas vectorborne diseases produced up to 22.8% of these events. The EID origins are supposed to be

correlated with socio-economic, ecological and environmental factors and have a significant
impact on public health and global economies.
The zoonotic outbreaks has different via of transmission and infection, here are put
some examples of zoonotic diseases that human may get from wildlife can be illustrated by
food-borne diseases, for example, Toxoplasmosis and vector-borne diseases such as,
Babesiosis, as well as, water-borne diseases as Giardiasis and Cryptosporidiosis. Chai et al
(2005) also report an important source of zoonotic food-borne infection, to be specific, a fishborne zoonotic infection caused mostly by helminthes such as, trematodes, cestodes and
nematodes, in these findings were described the causative pathogens human liver flukes
including Clonorchis sinensis, Opisthorchis viverrini, Opisthorchis felineus, Metorchis
conjunctus, likewise Diphyllobothriasis and Anisakiasis. One the other hand, there are some
zoonotic diseases that human can give to wildlife such as, Giardiasis (Giardia duodenalis)
which was found in some population of muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) in the Canadian Artic
as described by Kutz (2008). Another example of anthropogenic action as source of infection
of wildlife is considered in a California study which found Toxoplasma gondii in southern sea
otters exposed to freshwater runoff supposedly contaminated with cat waste as mentioned by
Miller (2004).
The majority of zoonotic diseases threatening human and wildlife health are closely
associated to poverty and socioeconomic factors as stated by Thompson (2014) , for example,
when the author mentions that cultural food customs is the constant cause of Trichinellosis in
humans, and that the infection is related to the lack of prophylactic measures including
consumption of raw, undercooked, fermented, or cured meat, for this reason there are the
need of testing food safety.
On this perspective, The One Health Initiative seeks combine educational efforts
between human medical, veterinary medical school, and public health schools and the
environment intending create a well based communication platform through journals at
conferences and via health networks that provides prompt intercommunications between its
members. The One Health provides also mutual efforts in clinical care through the
assessment, treatment and prevention of cross-species disease transmission, as well as,
disease surveillance and control efforts in public health through a better understanding of
cross-diseases transmission provided by a comparative medicine and environmental research.

Another objective of the One Health initiative is joint efforts to advise and instruct political
leaders and the public sector through accurate and broad media publications.
According to Hueston et al (2013), the actual position of the One Health is developing
global OH transformational change focusing on an international working group of physicians,
veterinarians, and social scientists invited by the authors to a meeting at the Rockefeller
Bellagio Center in Bellagio, Italy during a period from July 26 to 30, 2011. Over the course
of one week, the working group, respectively: reviewed the status of One Health
implementation; identified challenges, gaps, and opportunities; captured promising practices;
reviewed a proposed change model as a potential evaluation tool for OH activities; and
agreed on a way forward to further catalyse the adoption of OH approaches globally. From
this point, the working group reached consensus that international adoption of OH
approaches in the context of health risk at the human-animal-ecosystem will require: more
strategic efforts utilizing different types of evidences for different stakeholders such as,
utilizing compelling stories or case statements; jointing a broader intercommunications
between professionals from diverse sectors, disciplines, and scenarios, for example,
corporate, political, NGOs, philanthropic, academic, and public policy sectors; firming
partnerships from demonstration of OH value proposition by indicating the benefits of the
OH approaches for key stakeholders; and finally, unifying OH efforts to increase
opportunities for securing resources necessary for implementing and sustaining OH
approaches worldwide.
The assessment mentioned previously, described by Hueston (2013), about the present
situation of One Health implementation provides subsidies for reference by measuring
progress. The change model, perhaps, may provide a convenient instrument for planning and
implementing OH approaches in order to enhance their sustainability. Finally the success of
global OH implementation will be evident when OH approaches become the new effective
normal for solving complex health issues at the triad of humananimalecosystem.

Bibliography

Chai, Jong-Yil, K. Darwin Murrell, and Alan J. Lymbery (2005). "Fish-borne Parasitic
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Castle, and C. L. Higgins. (2010) "Understanding Risk Perceptions to Enhance
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One

Health

Initiative.

2014.

About.

Accessed

15

October

2014.

Accessed

15

October

2014.

http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/about.php
One

Health

Initiative.

2014.

Mission.

http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/mission.php
Thompson, R.c. Andrew (2014) "Parasites and Food: Ripe for Exploitation." Trends in
Parasitology, 30 (1), 1-3.